Arts Journalism Simplified

Some of the things that arts journalists write in Sydney beggar belief.

In today's Sydney Morning Herald, Bryce Hallett and Valerie Lawson wrote a wrap-up story of the Sydney Festival. Overall it was a relatively straight forward article - the festival was a success, it made such-and-such profit, wasn't that show wonderful, shame about this and that etc etc.

Then, in a little corner of the article, the Herald decides to put a little box of festival 'Hits' and 'Misses' entitled The Wash-Up. (Does anyone have any idea what exactly The Wash-Up means?) And under 'Misses' is the wonderful production of Seemanslieder. This was a production I loved. So many of my colleagues loved it. Sure it wasn't for everyone - but a 'miss'???

I quickly refer back to the SMH review by John Shand. What was it he said about Seemanslieder?

"It was daring, funny, surreal and poignant..."

Suddenly Hallett and Lawson decide to then earmark the production as something else, saying:

"It has always been Linehan's aim to make the broad-based festival intelligent, accessible and fun but he is not sure why audiences embraced an event that was not all plain sailing, as Christoph Marthaler's lengthy mosaic Seemannslieder testified. One reader took issue with the Herald's review and called the performance 'a dog'."

Indeed, I remember reading that letter. Took a cursory glance at it and thought that Seemanslieder certainly wasn't for everyone and what a shame that the said letter writer didn't appreciate the magic of the production.

From there, Hallet and Lawson decide to call Seemanslieder 'slow, studied and interrupted by audience walk-outs'. Surely, after years reporting on the arts, they should be aware that some performances are not always for everyone.

There were some events that many championed that I disliked. But that hardly warrants the tag of a 'miss'. Thankfully for us, Fergus Linehan is the festival director and a little more measured in branding events in such simplistic terms as a hit or a miss.